Part 28: Flight Log 22 - Lt. Lance Casey

[Flight Log 22 - Lt. Lance Casey]

Nomad is going to get me thrown in the brig. Jesus Christ.







This was the first time I got to fly one of Confed's top-of-the-line ships, and I even got to choose what I wanted to fly. While the Vampire looked awesome with its maneuverability and tons of missiles, I had heard too many great things about the Plasma Gun to turn down a chance to get to use it against an alien carrier. So I told the CAG I wanted to hop into one of the bombers for this mission.



Amazingly enough, when we got to Nav 1, there were no enemies in sight. This was a welcome relief to getting jumped by 12-15 alien fighters, which is what seems to always happen to me. We looked around, took in the sights, and then kept moving on to Nav 2 and the carrier.



At Nav 2, Spyder told me that the Vampires had my back and that I should concentrate on taking that carrier down. Not like I really needed to be told that, but it's nice to have the other squadron leaders talk to you and let you know that they're looking out for you. I meant to ask Spyder exactly how he found that beacon on his last patrol, but I was busy concentrating on taking this carrier down.



I wasn't intending to get into a sortie with any fighters, but I felt like I had to test out this Plasma gun, just to see if it worked as well against alien fighters as I heard it did. This was the result of one shot with the gun. So yes, yes it works every bit as well as they said it did.



This was a perfectly intact shield emitter...



...and this was the result after that shot hit. Two shots took down the two large shield emitters, and one shot took out the smaller one. I think I was starting to fall in love with this gun.



I made a slightly selfish move by ordering my wingmen back to formation. I didn't want them taking down the carrier before I could see if this gun was as effective on large ship components as it was against everything else. I had heard that the gun could damage a component about as well as a light torpedo could, and I wanted to find out. Curiousity killed the carrier, as they say.



I lined up with the bridge for my run...



FIVE SHOTS LATER, the bridge was done and my targetting reticule was telling me to go for the engines next. Wow. Simply wow.



Five more shots against the engine, and the carrier was down for the count. A successful mission, thanks to the downright astounding power of the Plasma gun.



With my adrenaline pumping, I was almost disappointed to find Nav 3 empty of enemies, but I pulled myself together and realized that there would be plenty of aliens to fight in the future. We took another quick look around and then headed back to the Midway.



My heart was still racing as I checked the status computer to see my score. I had never flown in anything that amazingly dominant before, and I hoped I never had to go back to flying one of those older ships again. Maybe I was spoiled, but it was too much fun to care. I finished checking my score, and then went to the bar to grab a drink to settle myself. I can't wait for my next mission.


Hrissith Mission 1 *** (the mission itself is fairly boring, but I'm giving it 3 stars because screenshots do not do justice to the amazing power of the Plasma gun. Plus there's a couple of surprises in the video.)
(Filefront)

(in the video I bitch at you guys for picking the Devastator, but I was mostly joking. In reality, it's better you did pick the Devastator, because you'll be seeing the Vampire a little more than the Devastator from here on out, so you might as well get your chance to see it while you can. Also, Devastator missions (and all bombing missions in general) tend to be easier than escorting bombers in a fighter, because the wingman AI is pretty good at dogfighting, whereas it's really bad at bombing runs, so I'd rather do it myself, usually)